Haunted Castles (12 page)

O
LORD,

High on its jutting promontory, gaunt and austere, Castle Csejthe still stands, dark and muted now, its tenants none but rats and spiders, nesting birds, and one lone wretch, Elisabeth, Thy servant. In my sleepless desolation, I think upon those great rooms I am constrain'd to see no more, and roam in fancy through them, gliding like an insubstantial phantom through those high, broad, livid veils of dust that, when they catch the moonlight and a vagrant breeze, shimmer and ponderously sway, thus doubtless spawning village talk of ghosts—vast, shapeless, silent, silver minions now that once were solid men and women. Sometimes a bird, flapping and cawing, will start a shrill reverberation drifting through those bleak, abandon'd halls, filling their enormous emptiness with memories of screaming, and of pitiless laughter, and of the sharp cries of fleshly lust.

I do not starve for food, but pine for faces, and for the cherish'd sound of speech. The serfs whose task it is to hand my fare in through the narrow chink risk death by the whispers they afford me in their pity, yet they are good of heart, and when I plead with them and beg them but to speak, to utter any words, be they ever so plain and paltry, these lowly folk cannot gainsay me.

From them, I glean that in the village, in every inn and cottage, the church itself not excepted, all but one colour may be seen in draperies and raiment and every manner of trapping: no soul will dare display a thing of crimson. The sun itself is shunn'd when, at the close of day, it sinks into its scarlet bath; and should a wayfarer, ignorant of this strange conceit, enter the village, and he attir'd in red, be it no more than a kerchief of the offending hue, that garment is stripp'd from him, and burnt, and he is told, “We of Nyitra are sore surfeited with that colour; by firm decree we do not name it, we think not of it, we have forbade our eyes to look upon it evermore.”

Soon I will die, O Lord, and the fetters of mortality will be stricken from my limbs, and I will straightway fly into Thy Presence, into the waiting embrace of Thine Arms. The thought of that liberation is the sole thing that sustains me in my harsh imprisonment, and allows me to endure these final solitary days, seal'd off by stone and mortar from this world, from the blue of the very sky, denied all human congress, speaking naught, seeing no one, inaccessible to all save Thee.

The others are already dead—some dispatch'd mercifully, some torn and broken by protracted torture, then burnt while yet they liv'd. I alone (and how alone!) remain, passing the cheerless days with this my screed, a captive in a single room of this which was my castle.

Fifteen I was, and lovely, when first I came to Castle Csejthe as the bride of Ferencz Nadasdy. My flesh was as pearl, lit from within, the faint blue tracery of the veins lightly visible; my hair, a tumble of raven's plumage that fell to below my waist; mine eyes, large and lustrous; my mouth, full-lipp'd and carmine. (Do women of the village now, I wonder, blanch the proscrib'd colour of their lips?)

We had met not many months before, in my father's house, where Nadasdy had been an honour'd guest. He was handsome and masterful, a scant six years older than mine own few years. His sweet demeanour, the lightning flashes of his eyes, his melodious laugh, his arms, hard with latent puissance: these things commended him to me, and quicken'd my blood. No man had yet enjoy'd me, but I knew full well that Ferencz yearn'd to do so. He paid me compliments, bestow'd flowers and other gifts upon me, seldom left my side.

I took refuge in coyness, and reciprocated by presenting him with a dainty wooden box made of interlocking panels, a product of Cathayan cunning, impossible to open lest one knew the secret sequence of its intricate design. It had belong'd to my mother.

“There is a sweetmeat within,” I told him. “It is thine to savour, if thou canst extract it.”

At first, he tried without success to gain entry, his fingers vainly prodding and prying. “Canst find no way into that little toy, Count Ferencz?” I said, amus'd at his efforts. “How wilt thou find thy way into my heart?”

He laugh'd, and solv'd the problem simply—by crushing the box between his two strong hands and victoriously chewing the sweetmeat, his eyes aglint with mischief.

I feign'd vexation. “Brute strength,” I coldly said. “It is a thing to please foolish girls . . .”

“But it does not please Elisabeth Bathory,” he rejoin'd, “kin to bishops, cardinals, princes, kings. So be it. Pose me other problems, little Bathory, and Ferencz of Nyitra will solve them all!”

“Sayest thou? Then look upon these . . .” I shew'd him three eggs, which artisans had stain'd with divers patterns, each delightful, yet each different.

“Painted eggs,” said Ferencz, with a shrug. “Dost think I cannot open them, as thou thought I could not open that little box?”

He reach'd for the eggs, but I stay'd his hand. “This is a problem for thy
mind
, Count Ferencz, not thy sinews,” I explain'd. “Each of these eggs is pleasing to the eye, and yet each is different from its sisters. It is hard to choose among them, they are so beautiful. Is it not so?”

“It is so—if that be thy wish.”

“But once the pretty shells are peel'd away, one egg will taste much like another.”

“Doubtless. Does thy discourse have a theme?”

“Only this,” I said: “It is even so with women. Outwardly, one of us may seem more fair than others; but when our shells are crack'd . . .”

He smil'd; his white teeth gleam'd. “The riddling wisdom of the Bathorys is well-renown'd,” he admitted, “but Nadasdy wit can match it. Look thou here . . .” He gestur'd toward three carafes which stood on my father's table. “Outwardly, all these are quite the same,” he said, “but do not be deceiv'd. One contains strong Bathory wine . . .” He drank deeply from the wine carafe. “One contains water . . .” He drank of the water. “And one is full of emptiness.” He flung the empty carafe to the floor's stone flagging, where it was sunder'd into shards. He walk'd closer to me and look'd long into mine eyes before he spoke. “It is even so with women,” he said, echoing my words. “Elisabeth, God willing, I would quench my thirst with strong Bathory wine—not tasteless water.”

“And if . . .” I found it difficult to speak. “And if I fain prove full of emptiness, Count Ferencz?”

“My love should fill thee,” he swore.

That same night, when my old nurse, Ilona Joo, was undressing me, I ask'd of her, “What think thee of the young Nadasdy?”

“A noble gentleman,” she replied, “and all report him gracious, brave, and godly.”

“But of his person, what of that, Ilona? Is he not comely and well-favour'd?”

Ilona laugh'd at this, and said, “The time is past, my lady, when such things caught my fancy; and yet I deem Count Ferencz most agreeable to the eye.”

“Ilona,” I said as I climb'd into my bed, “would marriage to him suit me, dost think?”

“Thou art young,” she answer'd, “but it may be that thou art ready for reaping. The Bathorys are people of high blood. Thy brother, since the time his cheek first sprouted pallid down, has never yet been sated, and neither green-bud maids nor matrons far past ripe have been enough to glut him. Thine aunts and uncles, all, crave without end; thy noble cousin Zsigmond . . . tut, tut, thou mak'st me talk of things not meet.”

“Is marriage, then, not meet? For it is
that
I bade thee speak of, dear old goose.”

“Marriage, my child,” she said, after smoothing my coverlet, “is a key to a lock'd casket, full of many things.”

“What kind of things?” I ask'd her.

“Things unknown,” she said. “Bright things, most oft, but . . .”

“But
what
, Ilona?”

“But naught. It is time thou wert asleep.” She blew out the candles. “Good night, my little bud, and dream of pleasing things.”

I did. I dream'd of Ferencz. That same week, he ask'd for and receiv'd my hand, for he was look'd upon with favour by my father.

The wedding feast was prodigal, and spoken of throughout the land. Hundreds of guests attended, pounds of viands and gallons of drink were consum'd. The king himself was present, and his Prime Minister, my cousin. Another kinsman of mine, a great prince of Transylvania, sent gifts and lordly greetings across the miles. There was dancing, and there were songs of minstrels; and some of the men, my brother among them, giddy with the fumes of wine, quarrel'd and brawl'd and laugh'd and, I doubt not, had their way of serving maids in the priviest recesses of my father's house.

Through all of this, my glance would catch the eye of Ilona; but she said naught, proffer'd me scant regard, and I was sore distress'd at this and could, at length, endure her silence no whit more; hence went to her, and took her two old hands in mine.

“Dear friend,” I chided, “whence come these glances? Have I done ought to vex thee?”

“No, my lady,” she said.

“Why, then, rejoice with me,” I begg'd her. “This is a merry time. Put off thy glumness and thy frowns, or I will think thou dost not wish to see me happy.” I then perceiv'd that both her cheeks were wet. “Dear nurse, weepest thou? Pray do not, lest mine own tears flow.”

“I weep to think of time's too hurried passage,” she replied. “For fifteen years thou hast been my tender charge, and now . . .”

“Ilona,” I said, “dost think I am a heartless ingrate who would leave thee behind? Thou'lt come with us, and be with me alway.”

“Oh, lady,” she said in a rush of warmth, “those words are a benison to mine ears!”

And so, on that same day, I, my husband, and my nurse departed for Nyitra; and soon I was to behold Castle Csejthe for the first time.

Vasty, it stood upon high ground, o'erlooking all the countryside, and was, in truth, a bastion'd citadel, for the rich and noble of that region, in times past, being much given to feuds and bloodshed, had need of suchlike strongholds to subdue their equals and oppress their lessers. Such castles, too, gave protection 'gainst the invading Turk, rampant in our land. In the months to come, Ferencz was to shew me every inch of this his home, but this detailing was to wait upon his ardour: we had not been within the walls of Csejthe ten minutes ere he lifted me aloft in his strong arms, and with a lustly laugh, carried me up a winding, wide, stone staircase to our chambers.

“Now, Elisabeth; pale, trembling little Bathory,” he whisper'd when we were quite alone, “I will do that I swore to do: fill thy maiden emptiness with my love.”

In later days, I was to recollect the words of old Ilona Joo, and her likening of marriage to a key that opened seal'd and secret places, denizen'd by things unknown. For such it prov'd.

I
t was, at first, a key to joy.

As in the old tale of the slumbering princess, Nadasdy's kiss awaken'd me, open'd mine eyes to piercing colours I had not hitherto beheld. I flourish'd, ripen'd, thriv'd, like some lush tropic bloom. Each sense was made more keen, the air itself more sharp and clear, lung-lancing, as is air upon a mountain top, for indeed to peaks of pleasure Ferencz led me, slowly to start with, step by timorous step, then setting out with more audacity, striving together, each succouring the other, climbing, first to one ledge, then to a higher, and then to yet a higher and more dizzying ridge, finally to soar as if on wings and to attain, both in the same heart-bursting moment, that cloud-capp'd ultimate point.

This arduous and ardent mountain scaling was not the work of any single night; rather, it was a task spread over many weeks and months. Not ever had I known such blinding gladness; its very existence this side of Heaven's gates I had not once suspected. And thus I fell to worshipping my Ferencz as I would a god. His lithe young body was a shrine at which I knelt, bowing happily before his might, paying him tender homage, grateful, humble, awed by the majesty and marvel of his transfiguring power.

He, too, was close to Heaven in such moments, for he would cry aloud: “God! O, God! My God!” as if the Deity had appear'd, in a supernal flash, before his eyes.

Once, in the dark, I, in my foolish innocence, ask'd him: “Why dost thou call upon God when thou art with me thus?” He seemed bemus'd by my question, and I was oblig'd to mimic him as best I could, calling out as was his wont: “‘O God! My God!'” until he laugh'd. “Why sayest that?” I ask'd again.

“In faith, I do not know,” he said, and I could feel him smiling in the darkness, for with my fingertips I trac'd his lips. “It is a thing men say; no more.” We lay not speaking for a time, and I knew that he was thinking on my question. At length, he spoke again: “Perchance 'tis this . . .” He held me closer, and his voice was quiet. “This joy that we twain make together is but a gift; a gift from Him; the brightest thing of all that He has given us. It gilds the drabness of our world, makes music out of silence. When I say that, when any man or woman says it, we are thanking Him for the gift.”

This I could well understand, for in this wise I thank'd my private god, my Ferencz, for his bounty.

Our life together was an idyll. Having no need for other folk, we saw but few, content within our universe of love. Troubadours, from time to time, would pass our way and sing some lay or other and pass on; the reverend father from the village church would come to say a simple mass and hear confession; messengers would bring dispatches to Ferencz, which he would read, and frown upon, and give grumbling reply; purported wizards of the woods and flame-hair'd gypsies would wander near the castle, gathering weeds and herbs, and would smile up at us and we would nod from out our window; villagers would bring provender to the castle kitchens; but these were all.

When love did not demand our urgent services, Ferencz and I would roam the whole of Csejthe, within and without. Mighty it was, and arrogant, its arrogance proclaim'd by its high, unbroken, battlemented walls; its overhanging bartizans and galleries from which attackers could be shower'd with missiles and archers' shafts; its projecting turrets, palisades, and towers. Ferencz would extol the main wall's strength and the loftiness of its parapet, pointing with family pride to every bulwark and rampart, praising the crenels and merlons, explaining patiently the purposes of glacis, escarp, counterscarp, and machicolation, until my brain would spin and I would yawn, and he would make a show of anger, causing us both to laugh.

The castle's depths we plumb'd, descending into dungeons where, in former times, dread punishments were suffer'd by unhappy captives. There stood the infernal rack, and branding irons and thumbscrews, and that grim table called in French
peine forte et dure
, whereon helpless wretches were constrain'd to lie under intolerable iron weights until the breath of life was press'd from them. “Tokens of bygone tyranny,” my husband call'd these fell objects. “God grant no human soul again scream out his final hours here.”

“Amen to that,” I said.

It was my husband's custom, when we address'd ourselves to the sweet rites of Venus, to allow no mortal thing to interrupt us. Minstrels were silenc'd at such times, no messengers admitted to the castle, no thing or person given leave to sully the unmingled rapture of our love.

It yet befell, one rain-thick night, when the lightning and the thunder fill'd the eyes and ears, and we oblivious to it all, so deep immur'd within our love were we, that a wayfarer approach'd the castle. He came on foot, his pummel'd body bent forward into the driving slant of the rain, his clinging raiment heavy and dark with wet. More than once, he slipp'd in the slick brown mud and fell, sliming himself from head to foot, but each time he rose and clamber'd on, desperate to reach the castle, his eyes intent upon the great portcullis that barr'd his entry. At length, his vigour spent, his bosom heaving, he fell against the outer wall and tried to regain his breath. This done, he commenc'd to pound and shout, raising his voice high above the shriek of wind, demanding word with Count Nadasdy. A wracking cough shook him more than once, and nearby twists of lightning balefully blanch'd his face, but when the spasms were subsided, he resum'd. All this, I learn'd of later.

From one of the castle bartizans, a helmeted guard at last looked down. “Away with thee!” he cried to the forlorn figure below.

The wayfarer persisted: “Grant me entrance! Raise the portcullis, I beseech thee!”

“Have done with that!” the guard call'd down. “Count Ferencz will see no one! Be off!” And he fix'd an arrow to his crossbow.

“Scullion!” the wayfarer cried. “Is this the welcome thou affordest a courier of the king?”

“A courier?” the guard rejoin'd. “Unmounted, like a churl?”

“My steed lies dead a league from here. Open, I say!”

“King's courier?” the guard call'd down again. “What sign proclaims thee this?”

“Sign enough!” the fellow roared: “Thy caitiff head upon a pike, when the king hears how thou useth me!”

By this time, the tumult had reach'd my husband's ears, and disengaging himself from mine arms, he gave orders to admit the man. With a sour creaking of chains and winches, the portcullis was rais'd, and at length the courier enter'd the great hall. A stoup of hot wine was put into his hands, and this he drank off at a draught. “My lord,” he then said to Ferencz, “these from His Majesty.” And handed certain papers to my husband.

When he had read them, frowning more deeply even than his wont, he pass'd them to me, but I could make small substance of them, darken'd as they were by bristling words such as “defense” and “border,” “the marauding Turk” and “loyal Magyar lords.” Looking up, I ask'd, “What mean these papers, Ferencz?”

“They may be digested and distill'd to one hard word.” He turn'd to me, and I could see his gentle nature reinforc'd with manly steel as he, with sorrow, spoke that one word: “War.”

The happenings of that night were swift and melancholy. I found myself helping Ferencz into his battle garb and gear, asking him tearful questions touching upon his return, but answers had he none, and I could see his thinking was already far from Nyitra and from me. Then, at the open portal, clad though I was but in my nightdress, my bare feet wet and cold upon the drench'd flagging, the raging elements all wild and out of tune around us, he bade me kiss him.

This I did, in a frenzy, throwing my arms about him, crying, “Live, Ferencz! Live for me!”

He smiled down upon my upturn'd face. “Little Bathory,” he said, “player with painted eggs and Cathay boxes. God's my guardian, thou my guerdon: how else, then, can it be but I will triumph over Death and foe alike?”

And, on these words, he rode into the whirling storm.

I stood, I know not how long, in the portal, nearly naked, the icy rain pasting my nightdress to my body as 'twere a shining skin; until Ilona, rous'd from her sleep, clucking words of comfort, led me back to my bed, peel'd the dripping garment from me, warm'd me with blankets, and sat with me until I wept myself at last to troubled sleep.